


Cold Bodies

by StaticLantern



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 10:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2105691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StaticLantern/pseuds/StaticLantern
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how much you hate somebody, seeing absolute fear in their eyes will trigger sympathy in you. You’ll reconsider your feelings for the person. You reconsider what you thought you knew about them. Loki had been a figure of fear for the people of New York. Even when he’d first arrived on earth, exhausted and weak, he’d still been intimidating. It was in his eyes. He commanded authority, he was confident, speaking of peace and freedom while still implying that he planned to slaughter every man, woman, and child that dared stand between him and his throne.<br/>That intimidation had been replaced with fear in it’s purest. It was a simple fear, mixed with acceptance. There was nothing that could have been done, and Loki had accepted that. And that simple fear was now replaced with nothing. The light had gone and Loki was dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Bodies

**Author's Note:**

> Warm Bodies Frosthawk AU. It's quite a bit different from the movie, but I'm sure you'll all see similarities and scenes taken pretty much directly from the movie, especially near the end.
> 
> \---------
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr!
> 
> Http://birdwithakeyboard.tumblr.com/

No one was really sure what started the disease. Some people claimed it was a bad Ebola outbreak, some claimed it was a Government viral weapon that had been leaked somehow, others claimed biblical cause. It was all speculation though. Those who actually worked in the government weren’t even sure. Clint Barton speculated mutants might have had something to do with it. He’d heard about one in Nepal that could raise the dead. That idea kind of went out the window when it started spreading though. Mutant powers don’t spread through bite.  
Fortunately for him, Clint was already a bit of a recluse. He was in his apartment when the first news report broadcasted about some dude thought to be high on bathsalts or pcp ripped a girl’s throat out with his teeth. He was in his apartment when more reports started pouring in. He was in his apartment when he got the call from Fury to stay in his home, barricade himself in, and make for a safehouse when he wasn’t given the ok.  
Clint stayed put for a month, waiting to get another call. He had an arsenal in his house of questionable size, consisting of both various guns as well as arrows. God he loved arrows. He was safe in his house, and he still had power, running water (though it’d gone cold about three weeks in), but he still didn’t get the call. He stayed put, watching the streets between the panels on his windows. There were dozens of people stumbling along the streets. It looked almost no different than usual.  
After the first month, he ran out of provisions. He hadn’t exactly been preparing for any sort of apocalypse, so he had stores, but nothing that would last him for long. He’d rationed well, but he couldn’t stay in there forever. Eventually, he had to venture out of his apartment and search for food. There was a corner store a couple blocks down, and he had no worries about being able to make it there. He’d faced an army of aliens and countless other threats in the past. This was a walk in the park.  
Two months of venturing out every week to secure more food and water. The corner store supplied him for the first month and a half, then it ran out. He had a hunch someone else might have been using the store too, but he never saw anyone that was alive. He’d gone longer without contact with people before, on missions, on ‘vacations’, in just preferring to be by himself most of the time, but he didn’t like forced isolation. Especially since he knew everyone could be dead. Who’s to say Natasha made it back to base? Or Steve? Or Bruce or Tony? Any of his work buddies? Any of them could be dead and the thought gnawed away painfully at the back of his mind. He felt helpless.

Four months had passed since the start of the outbreak. The time to secure more provisions was at hand, and Clint had cleaned out the last place he’d been to the week before. He knew another place, but it was further. He kept having to go out further and further every month it seemed, and it was starting to get dangerous. He’d nearly been bitten two weeks ago, and it honestly terrified him. Clint wasn’t afraid of death, but he was afraid of turning into one of those mindless creatures, stumbling around, murdering other people with no will of their own. He’d been like that once before, he had no intentions of doing it again.  
Clint stood on his bed, a large duffle bag slung over his shoulders, as well as a quiver full of arrows, a bow, handguns strapped to either leg, and a large knife strapped to his calf. He lifted his arms over his head and pulled on the roof access door. Pulling himself up, he peaked around the roof before pulling himself up the rest of the way . Everything seemed clear, absolutely quiet as usual.  
After making it as far as he could keeping to the roofs, he slid down into an alleyway and quickly made his way down the street. He kept to a jog, moving quickly while still saving energy in case he had to run. Everything still seemed quiet.  
Several blocks down, the store came into view. Minutes later, he was at the front wall. The windows were boarded from the outside and the doors were locked. Most buildings were like this, he wasn’t sure why. In the event of the end of the world, Clint always figured the last thing he would try to do is protect a goddamn grocery store, assuming he owned one. He couldn’t fathom human logic sometimes. It was another reason he preferred to keep to himself.  
He hated having to break glass to get into buildings. The noise attracted the creatures like cut fruit attracted flies. He circled around the building and found one of the windows was boarded, but already broken. Maybe someone had been inside and got trapped, tried to break the window to get out but didn’t quite make it. Figuring out that sort of thing wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it helped Clint get an idea of what he should expect upon entering the building. It’s saved him a few times in the past.  
The boards came off fairly easily, and soon enough he was inside the dark store. He tumbled into a back office. There was a few blood splatters, but nothing that suggested a real struggle had occurred in the room. He felt a bit uneasy. Maybe someone had come in here, and that was why the window was broken. There was a small gap at the bottom of the window, Clint had assumed whoever boarded the window had just run out of materials or time. Whoever used it would have had to have been fairly slender.  
Clint pulled the bow from his shoulder and loaded it with an arrow, just a regular arrow, nothing fancy. He was known to accidentally shoot at nothing, so no point in wasting his good arrows until he knew for sure he was boned. He let the arrow point at the ground as he slowly moved through the store. Keeping alert, he put a few things in his bag. He’d learned quickly that he needed to load a couple things into his bag while he scouted the store for zombies in case he got chased out before he was done. Better to leave with just a loaf of bread, a water bottle, and a can of baked beans than with nothing at all.  
He froze. A noise caught his ears and he froze to the spot, straining his ears to listen for it again. Then his muscles tensed and he turned, aiming the arrow behind him. He only just barely caught himself from releasing the weapon at the figure. He recognized the man in front of him. He almost fired anyways, but this man was alive and well, at least from what he could tell, and even with who it was, he couldn’t bring himself to kill somebody. Evil or not, he was the first person Clint had seen in four months.  
“Loki…”  
“Hello Barton.” The man replied casually, as though everything was normal and they were simply two acquaintances meeting in the cereal aisle.  
“What the hell are you doing here?” Clint demanded, more confused than angry.  
“Mostly attempting not to be eaten by those things wandering around outside. I’m assuming you’re doing something similar.”  
“I mean what the hell are you doing on Earth, Thor took you back to Asgard almost a year ago.”  
“Oh yes, terribly dreary. They had me locked up in another box, it was so boring. I figured it’d be more fun here.” Loki cracked a grin.  
“So what, you just… left? You decided you didn’t like being in jail so you left?” Clint asked, letting out a single amused scoff.  
“Come now, you didn’t think a jail cell would be able to hold me, now did you?” The smile broadened. “And as horrid as your world is, I thought I’d prefer being down here than being Odin’s goldfish.”  
“You thought?” Clint arched an eyebrow.  
“Well as exciting as this all has been, I don’t especially like random strangers coming up and trying to bite me.” Loki retorted, shifting his weight.  
“Fair enough. So you’ve been living here then?” Clint asked, glancing around shortly.  
“Yes, but it’s not terribly safe and I don’t have much to defend myself with. It’s even less safe now that we’ve been talking, I’m sure something’s heard us by now. I don’t suppose where you’ve been living is any safer than here?”  
Clint couldn’t help but feel initial suspicion of Loki wanting to live with him, but he pushed it down. Loki was a proud man and wouldn’t normally ask for help ever. Clint could see the fear in his eyes, as well as he hid it, and he did desperately want company. Slowly, he nodded.  
“Yeah, ok. Just, help me load up some food first. If you have another bag you can carry more food in, that’d be great.”  
Loki nodded and set to work. There was a backpack he found, not big, but helpful nonetheless. They packed up as much food and water as they could carry and slipped out the broken window. Clint made Loki carry both bags so he could keep his hands free, already making his trip back safer. And he comforted himself in the thought that if zombies caught up to them, he’d steal the backpack and leave Loki for dead. He wouldn’t be directly responsible for his death, like shooting him with an arrow would have, his conscience could live with that.

To get back into Clint’s apartment, they had to scale up a fire escape and get back onto the roof. They dropped the food down into the apartment, then Clint lowered Loki down, following him soon after. He secured the access door tightly and led Loki into the kitchen to put the food in it’s respective places. Just because there’s a zombie apocalypse, doesn’t mean things don’t still have a place to go. What is Clint, an animal?  
“So, not much to the place, you don’t really need a grand tour. You take two steps that way and you’re in the living room, one step that way and you’re in the dining room. The bathroom is the door to the right when you go in the bedroom.” Clint said, leaning against the counter, watching Loki.  
“Where do you bathe?” Loki asked, tucking his arms in around his torso.  
“Uh, I catch the rainwater and store it in the bathroom. I do sponge baths to conserve it.” Clint replied.  
Loki nodded and turned to go to the bathroom. Clint followed him. Once they were in the small room, Clint bent over to take a clean washcloth out of the sink cabinet and handed it to Loki.  
“There’s soap in here too, if you want to use it.” Clint shrugged. Loki nodded and moved to take his shirt off, turning away from Clint. “Loki…”  
“Hm?”  
“What the hell is that?”  
Loki looked to see where Clint was pointing. On his shoulder was a deep gash, scabbed over, still cake with blood.  
“What? Oh, I told you those things tried to bite me, didn’t I?”  
“You said they /tried/, you didn’t say they actually bit you.” Clint replied, clenching his jaw.  
“What’s it matter?”  
“It matters because if you get bitten, you turn into one you fucking idiot.” Clint snapped. He instantly felt guilty for getting angry though. Loki fell silent and the fear he’d been holding back clouded his eyes. “How did you not know that?”  
“I don’t see how I could have known. I’ve not exactly known anyone that’s been bitten. I thought-...” Loki’s brow furrowed and he looked away.  
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.”  
“...Are you going to kill me then?” He looked up, catching Clint’s gaze.  
“What? No, jesus Loki.” Clint turned to leave. “Take your bath.”  
“So you’re just going to let me turn into a mindless monster then?”  
Clint was already gone though. He shut the door behind him, a little harder than he meant to. He shouldn’t have just left like that, it was clear Loki was afraid, and rightfully so. He’d looked death in the eye before, but no one liked the idea of not being able to control their own actions. Loki seemed to fear being controlled so much that he’d committed mass genocide twice just so he could be king, so no one would ever control him again. Clint could only imagine what Loki was thinking now.  
He should kill him. He knew that. As dangerous as Loki was then, and now, he’d be more dangerous in a few days time at most, and the idea of shooting something that looked like Loki but wasn’t, was somehow incredibly eery to Clint.  
Clint was ripped from his thoughts by a voice behind him. He turned, not sure what he was expecting. There was no one. Then the voice came through again and he realized it was coming through his walkie talkie.  
“Hello?”  
“Clint?”  
“Natasha?”  
“Thank god. I was worried you weren’t going to pick up. Where the hell were you?”  
“I uh-.” He couldn’t tell her he had Loki in his bathroom, could he? “I was in the bathroom, sorry.”  
“Well knock it off, you’re supposed to be standing by, waiting for the call.”  
“It’s been four months, I kind of gave up waiting. But- then… does that mean it’s safe for me to move?” His heart lurched. Moving meant going to a safehouse, a safehouse meant plentiful provisions, which meant he wouldn’t have to go out every week to get food.  
“No.”  
“No?”  
“No the safehouse was breached. Nearly four hundred people died. It’s not safe anymore. The nearest one to you is in DC, so unless you can guarantee getting there safely, I wouldn’t recommend it.” Natasha replied.  
“Where are you?”  
“I’m in the one in DC. Stark and Banner are in one in California.”  
“And Steve?”  
“Last I heard, he’d holed up somewhere in Indiana.”  
“Indiana? What the fuck was he doing there?”  
“Roadtripping with Sam I think.”  
Clint paused. “Sam who?”  
“Wilson- you never met him did you?”  
“Yeah, no I have no clue who that is.” Clint laughed. He was glad Steve had made a friend though.  
“Oh well. I’ll talk to you later, conserve your battery. Don’t die.”  
“How can I die? You’d kill me for doing something that stupid.”  
“Damn straight I would.”  
He hung his walkie talkie back up on the charger, even though it didn’t work anymore. And then his current situation hit him again. He changed, set a gun down on the kitchen counter, and set to eating a pre-packaged microwavable burrito. He sighed, rubbing his head with his free hand. He had no fucking clue what he was going to do about Loki. The guy got himself bitten, he couldn’t keep him here, what the hell was he supposed to do?

Loki came out of the bathroom a while later. His hair was damp and he only wore his pants, explaining the shirt had blood on it and had decided to wash it. Without the top piece, it was clear how skinny and pale he was. His body was riddled with scars, some looking like they’d come from very excruciating wounds that would have been fatal to a human.  
“How are you feeling?” Clint asked. He’d never seen anyone turn, but he could imagine it wasn’t a pleasant process.  
“Sick, mostly. Very tired.” Loki sat down on the couch opposite of Clint, leaning his head on the arm and tucking his feet up beneath him. “How long do you suppose this whole thing will take?”  
Clint shrugged. “I have no idea. Could be by tomorrow morning, could take a week, I don’t know. When were you bitten?”  
“Two days ago, I believe.” Loki replied, biting his lower lip. Clint nodded slowly. It seemed like the process should work faster than that. Maybe it was because Loki wasn’t human. Maybe he wouldn’t change at all.  
Loki’s eyes slid shut while Clint was thinking. It’d gotten late, normally Clint would be getting ready for bed by now, but with the possible imminent threat roaming free in his house, that wasn’t really an option. Clint leaned back, trying to relax. If he was going to stay up all night watching Loki, he may as well get comfortable.

The man looked peaceful in his sleep. His facial features softened, his body relaxed, he no longer looked like the man Clint had met in the SHIELD base over a year ago. He looked like he could be anybody. He could be a cashier at Walmart or a neighbor’s son that stayed to care for his elderly mother. He could be a husband and a father, he just looked normal. Having nothing better to do, Clint mostly watched Loki sleep, and it relaxed him too, watching the gentle rise and fall of Loki’s chest.  
Sometime during the night, that rise and fall stopped. Clint’s breath caught in his throat when he noticed. He couldn’t help but picture this happening if Clint hadn’t found Loki, if his provisions had lasted just one day longer. Loki would have died in his sleep, alone, probably curled up on the cold floor in that grocery store.  
Clint cautiously leaned forward, resting his hand on Loki’s shoulder. He didn’t moved. He pushed a little, rolling Loki onto his back to watch his chest, to be certain he wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t. It seemed very final. Clint hadn’t even noticed his breathes getting shallower, they just seemed to stop all together. And Clint regretted it.  
No matter how much you hate somebody, seeing absolute fear in their eyes will trigger sympathy in you. You’ll reconsider your feelings for the person. You reconsider what you thought you knew about them. Loki had been a figure of fear for the people of New York. Even when he’d first arrived on earth, exhausted and weak, he’d still been intimidating. It was in his eyes. He commanded authority, he was confident, speaking of peace and freedom while still implying that he planned to slaughter every man, woman, and child that dared stand between him and his throne.  
That intimidation had been replaced with fear in it’s purest. It was a simple fear, mixed with acceptance. There was nothing that could have been done, and Loki had accepted that. And that simple fear was now replaced with nothing. The light had gone and Loki was dead, and Clint regretted it.  
And yet, it wasn’t final. Clint stood, stepping in front of Loki, and slipped his arms under the body. He hoisted him up and walked into his bedroom. Admittedly, this wasn’t the best way to handle the death of an old boss, but somehow, with the way the world was, he couldn’t really help but just… not fucking care. Who the hell was going judge him for chaining Loki up in his closet because somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to kill the man when he awoke as a mindless, vicious animal?

Clint sat in front of the closet, the door open, the corpse propped against the back of the closet, shackles holding him in place, and a gun in his hand. Just in case the chains didn’t hold. Just in case Clint changed his mind. Slowly, Loki stirred. His movements were slow, jerky, like he didn’t really know how to move just yet. When he opened his eyes, they were bloodshot, and emotionless. Yes, that fear was gone now. In all honesty, he almost resembled his old self again. Unfearing, confident in his own way.  
Loki was rabid. He instantly jumped at Clint, restrained by the shackles. He tumbled back into the closet, instantly growing frustrated. Clint opened a package of meat that had long since expired and threw a chunk of it at Loki, or whatever the creature was now. He seemed satisfied, shoving the piece in his mouth and sitting back, chewing it, watching Clint.  
They went on like that for a while; Clint throwing pieces of meat at Loki, and Loki staring at Clint while he chewed. When the meat ran out, Clint closed the door on the man, who didn’t seem happy about being closed in like that. He didn’t care. He went back to the living room. It was morning by that time, so he picked up the walkie talkie and tried to talk to Nat.  
“Clint, it’s 7 in the morning, what do you want?” It was clear Clint had woken her up.  
“You know how you told me not to die right?” He asked, laying back against the couch.  
“Unless you’re about to tell me you got your dumb ass bitten, I don’t see how that’s relevant.”  
“Well, no… I think I did something stupider.”  
There was silence.  
“I um… I found Loki… when I was getting food.”  
“Loki?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Like-”  
“Yeah.”  
“Ok….”  
Clint paused for a moment. “I brought him back to my apartment. It didn’t feel right to leave him out there, and I… I needed the company, you know?”  
“Oh my god, you slept with him didn’t you?”  
“What?! No, god, Nat, get your head out of the gutter.”  
Her end was filled with laughter. “Sorry, go on.”  
“I found out he’d been bitten though. I stayed up to watch him, make sure he didn’t you know, kill me in my sleep or something, and he stopped breathing, so I…”  
“Clint…”  
“No, it’s worse. I uhm… I have him chained up in my closet right now.”  
Natasha was silent for a moment again. “God, Clint… that’s… I’m sorry, that’s really messed up.”  
“I know. I know, I just… I don’t know why, but I can’t bring myself to shoot him.”  
“....Are you… You’re not feeding it are you?”  
“Uh…. I… definitely didn’t feed it human meat if that’s what you mean.”  
“Clint! What the fuck did you feed it?”  
Clint winced. No one to judge him right? “Old packaged beef that expired a couple months ago. It was really creepy actually, he ate it, but he stared at me the whole time. He almost looked conscious, I don’t know how to describe it.”  
A loud thud emanated from his room. He grabbed the gun, cocking it.  
“Clint, you have to get rid of it, it’s dangerous, and it’s… also just really weird, zombies aren’t pets Barton.”  
“Yeah I know…. I will, just… not yet.”  
“Whatever, I’m going back to sleep. Don’t die.”  
“I’m not quite that stupid yet.”  
“Stupider, goodnight.”

Clint ate breakfast and bathed himself, changing into clean clothes. He found more of the expired meat and sat down in front of the closet again. Loki was struggling against the chains. There were cuts appearing on his wrists and Clint wondered if Loki might sever his hands to get free. The thought made him shudder. He pushed it back, opening the package and tossing the meat at Loki. It seemed to calm him down. He sat back down against the wall, chewing and staring.  
“I always wondered… what made you the way you are, or were, I guess.” Clint said. Loki stared at him. He tossed another piece of meat. “What made you into someone that could kill people, thousands of people, and not even bat an eyelash at it. I’ve met some pretty fucked up people in my line of work, but you were different, I dunno. If you weren’t angry about us not working fast enough, you were usually just staring off into the distance with these dead, emotionless eyes. I used to wish I could know what you were thinking. Of course, my brain was filled with that blue crap from your sceptre so I was kind of obsessed with you at the time, but… I still wish I knew what you’d been thinking. If you could reply, I’d ask, but I know you only look like you’re paying attention because I have food.”  
Clint tossed two more pieces of meat.  
“I also used to wonder what happened before you got to Earth. Thor said you’d been missing for several months before you showed up here, and when you did, you were all weak and tired all the time. I remember I used to have to practically beg you to sit down. You wanted to be involved in every aspect of the plan. Even at night when everyone else was sleeping, you’d wander around, looking at everything as if you didn’t trust it not to get up and walk away when you weren’t looking.”  
Clint chuckled to himself and tossed more meat.  
“I guess I should have asked you all this yesterday… You stopped breathing a couple times last night, before you actually… I didn’t notice the first time. I noticed you start breathing again, and I felt like I wasn’t doing my job right.” He chuckled again. “My job. I still do that sometimes, you know. You only had me for a week, and I’ve got all these habits from it that have lasted for months. When I saw you in that store, my very first instinct was to make sure you were ok. I mean, it only lasted for a second before I wanted to shoot you, but… And then I watched you sleep all night.”  
He tossed another piece of meat, his movements forced, disheartened.  
“You looked so peaceful. You didn’t look angry anymore. You didn’t really look angry before that though, did you? You looked scared… It was the first time I’d seen you scared. It was weird, you know, in contrast to that front you put up so everyone thinks you’re confident and in control all the time… You should have gone home when the outbreak hit. You could have avoided all of this. Why didn’t you go home?”  
Loki shook his head, three or four small jerks of his head, his eyes rolling about a bit. Clint tossed more meat. Loki ignored it, still staring at Clint.  
“That’s all I’m giving you, eat that or eat nothing.” Clint threw another one, the last piece, intentionally hitting Loki in the face with it. Loki still didn’t move.  
He let out a low throaty noise, a sort of hum like he was getting ready to say something. He jerked his head to the sides again, his eyes lolling about. He looked fucking creepy as hell when he did that. It was starting to get hard to look at the man.  
“I don’t know why I’m even talking to you. You’re dead.” Clint stood up and moved to close the door. Loki shot a hand out and held it against the door, keeping it open. “Don’t be difficult, you sack of rotting skin.” He grumbled, kicking at Loki’s hand.

Two more days passed. Clint went about his business, eating, bathing, sitting in front of the closet and talking at Loki. He’d taken up sleeping on the couch, not trusting the closet quite enough to sleep in the bedroom. Also, Loki was beginning to emit a vague odour of death. It didn’t help him sleep any.  
Loki kept jerking his head sometimes, making low humming noises, staring at Clint. He went down to the corner store once, which he knew wouldn’t feed him, but it still had quite a bit of rotten food that he could use to keep Loki from going crazy. And it seemed to work. So long as he fed him, he wasn’t too violent. Clint even managed to touch him once. Adrenaline rush, probably, was the end goal, he wasn’t sure. He’d reached out and touched his knee, just to see if he could, because he was bored. He’d never mention it to Natasha, she’d probably walk all the way out there just to kick him in the face for it.

“I was kind of glad when I saw you in that store. I guess not you specifically, just… anyone. The only people I’d seen in four months were dead, it was nice to see someone that wasn’t trying to have me for dinner.” Clint was rambling one evening, laying on the floor, feet propped on the wall, head turned to face Loki. “I was supposed to get a call from Fury or someone, letting me know that it was safe to move to one of our SHIELD locations, it was supposed to be a safehouse. Nat told me a few days ago though that the disease had breached the house and everyone inside died… I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be there when it happened, trapped like an animal with four hundred other animals, all panicking and running from monsters that looked just like everyone else……”  
He fell silent and rolled over onto his stomach, tossing a bit of ground beef at Loki.  
“I wish you’d a lasted a few more days. It would have been cool to ask you about Asgard or something…. be neat to hear about other planets.”  
Loki jerked his head and made those low humming noises again.  
“I wish I knew why the fuck you keep doing that.” Clint snapped, sitting up and throwing the rest of the package at Loki, he responded with what looked like an exasperated sigh. “Watch the fuckin attitude man, I don’t have to feed you.” Another sigh. “Ok, yeah, I do, or I could just shoot you in the face and be done with it.”  
Loki stared at Clint, his head cocked to the side.  
“Yeah, I know, I’m not gonna do that either.”

Days turned to weeks and soon another month had passed by. Five months since the outbreak. One month since Clint found Loki and chained him up in his closet. His routine went from reading and rereading the books in his apartment all day long to chatting with Natasha over walkie talkie every few days and sitting in front of the closet, talking at Loki, who stared at him and waited for raw, rotten meat to be tossed at him.  
Clint talked about a lot of things. At first it was about Loki, then about life in general. He talked about Natasha a bit and told stories. As fucked up as the situation was, it seemed to be keeping Clint sane… sort of. He hadn’t blown his own head off yet, so he figured that was plus. Even if Loki was dead, he had someone to talk to, or at. It kept his mind off of things, he supposed.  
“You know, I actually faced zombies once before. Not like the kind you are, they were straight up just dead bodies this mutant in Budapest rose. Some small army of corpses she’d stolen from local graveyards n shit. They couldn’t change other people into zombies, they just killed people, or intimidated them, I’m not really sure what her end goal was. Natasha and I fought them all off and arrested the mutant, I don’t remember what she was calling herself… I wonder what became of her what with the end of the world. I guess she’d still probably be locked up in one of the SHIELD bases.”  
“..Sss..t…”  
Clint looked over at Loki. He’d been laying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. Looking at Loki was getting harder. He’d gotten painfully pale with several dark discolourations appearing all over his skin. His face and hands were always caked in the raw meat Clint tossed as him. He’d tied a washcloth to a stick and occasionally tossed a bit of water of Loki to try to clean him, keep down the stench. He wasn’t sure if that was weird of him to do or not yet.  
“Ssss...t...op.”  
Clint sat up.  
“Sst...op… t-t...talk...ing.”  
Clint stared at Loki in disbelief. Zombies didn’t talk. They couldn’t. They groaned and growled a lot, yeah, but… he must have just misheard him. Loki was propped up, legs askew in what looked like could be considered vaguely painful were Loki still alive. His head was leant against the doorframe, his dead, emotionless eyes trained on Clint.  
“I must be going crazy.” Clint muttered, letting out a small sigh and tossing a piece of chicken that was turning green at Loki.  
Clint rolled over onto his stomach again. “Ok, where was I? I just got finished telling the story about the Budapest zombies… I guess I’ve told most of the interesting ones. A lot of the stuff I’ve done was all pretty similar, you know, get driven or flown out to some obscure part of the world, fling a few arrows, then sleep in the hotel room until SHIELD came and picked me up.”  
“C-...lint…”  
Clint looked at Loki again. “You really gotta stop doing that… Maybe I’ll just go find something to read, get my head on straight.” Clint moved to get to his feet.  
“Don’t… go… pl...plea…”  
Clint crouched in front of the door, rubbing his eyes with his hands.  
“Sss..tay… plea.”  
Clint pulled his face from his hands a little, locking eyes with Loki.  
“You can’t be talking. Zombies don’t talk, you’re dead, you’re a mindless animal at best.”  
“No.”  
“You can’t expect me to believe you’re actually talking Loki, I’m just going crazy.”  
“Yes.”

Clint locked Loki back in the closet, moving into the living room, wandering about aimlessly for a bit before sitting down on the couch. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out from a drawer in a table beside the couch. They were painfully old, but he didn’t really care right now. He lit one and picked up the walkie talkie.  
“Hey, Nat, you there?”  
Silence.  
“Naaaat. Come on, I need to talk to you.”  
Silence.  
It took a while but Natasha finally replied.  
“Where were you?”  
“Working out.” She said, a little breathlessly.  
“Well knock it off.”  
“What do you want Barton?”  
“I’m just… I’m going a little crazy here, I just need to hear your voice.”  
“What’s going on?”  
Clint paused, letting his eyes fall on the door to his bedroom, sucking on the cigarette. “I um… I still have Loki here.”  
“Clint, that’s disgusting, he’s probably rotting by now.”  
“Yeah, I know. It’s just… it sounds like he’s trying to talk to me, I’m losing my mind out here.”  
“.........I have no idea how to respond to that Clint.”  
“I know, I didn’t expect you to, I just… needed to hear a real voice from someone I know I’m not imagining.”  
“Understandable.”

Clint chatted a bit longer with Natasha, trying to let himself forget what had transpired with Loki. She told him Steve and Sam had shown up at the Safehouse the day before. Steve had been bitten too and was in quarantine. Clint let her know how long it took for Loki to turn so they’d have an idea of when Steve would, if he did. A lot of people were theorizing that because of the serum, he might not change at all.  
After a while he had to stop talking to her though, conserve the battery. Plus, she had things to do in the safehouse. Duties and whatnot. So he hung the walkie talkie back up and went back into his room. He opened the closet door and sat directly in front of Loki.  
“Hi.” Clint said, watching Loki.  
“....Hi….”  
Clint nodded to himself, flicking his tongue over his lips.  
“So you can talk. How’s that?”  
Loki shrugged.  
“Yeah….”  
They kept staring at each other for a while, silent, Clint chewing on the inside of his lip. After a while, Clint slowly reached his hand out. Loki watched the hand moving towards him. He rested it on Loki’s knee like before and Loki stared.  
“So what, you don’t want to eat me anymore.”  
Loki shrugged. “..guess...not.”  
Hesitantly, Clint brought the hand further up, his eyes locked on Loki’s face, muscles tensed, ready to snap his hand back if Loki lunged at him. But he didn’t, and slowly, Clint rested his hand against Loki’s cheek. His skin was cold, Clint was pretty much expecting that. He’d touched corpses before, the only difference here was that this one was moving, watching him, talking to him.  
“Can… can you feel that?” Clint asked, furrowing his brow.  
“Yes.”  
Clint retracted his hand. “If I unchained you, what would you do?”  
Loki shrugged. “What...would you… you do?”  
“I don’t know… What I do isn’t really important, you’re the one that’s more likely to start chewing on me.”  
Loki cracked a small smile.  
Clint was still for a while longer, then finally got up. He exited the room, returning a while later with a key in one hand, gun in the other. He stood in front of Loki, staring down at him.  
“I must be fucking crazy.” Clint sighed, finally crouching down.  
He pressed the gun to Loki’s head and reached behind him to unlock him. Once the chains were free from Loki’s limbs, he took two quick strides away from Loki, gun still pointed at him. Loki pulled himself to his feet, unsteady, leaning against the doorframe, watching Clint.  
“Ok…. you’re unlocked… Now what?”  
Loki shrugged.  
“Ok….cool. You haven’t tried to eat me yet so that’s...cool. I think.”  
“Cool.”  
“Yeah...cool. And fucking crazy, I’ve lost my goddamn mind.”

_Remembering Clint’s name seemed easier enough. It rolled off the tongue. Your own name though? That seemed more difficult. Even though Clint said it a few times, you seemed to forget it pretty quickly afterwards. Started with an L right? ….Yeah, that sounds right.  
You liked watching Clint. He was still alive, so he could actually move. He had a nice posture, maybe you should sit up straight like Clint does. You tried it a few times, but somehow you kept ending up leaning against the doorframe. Oh well, Clint didn’t seem to care either way. In fact, Clint mostly ignored you. He stared up at the ceiling and talked, sometimes it was even directed at you, but most of the time, Clint just seemed to be talking to himself.  
Sometimes Clint asked you questions. You didn’t know how to reply though. Clint was so fluent with his words, you figured if you could even manage to remember how to talk long enough to reply, it’d probably sound pretty caveman-ish. You were pretty sure you were supposed to sound kind of eloquent, or maybe you just used to think really highly of yourself…  
Where were you before you were here? You couldn’t really remember. You were in the closet, you were there before, you were there now, you figured you’d probably be there later. You also felt like there was some sort of joke mixed in here somewhere, but you couldn’t figure out what it was. Was it just innately funny to be in a closet? Like, wow you silly zombie, why are you in a closet? You should be out chewing on someone’s liver right now. Sort of like how it’s kinda funny to see a cat playing in a paper bag. Cats don’t belong in bags, what are you doing in there?  
Wait, was Clint talking this whole time? God he talked a lot. It was starting to give you a headache. Maybe you could get Clint to stop for a while. How did you do that? Words… right…. yeah that would probably work. Which one should you use though? You couldn’t recall very many.  
“Sss...t…”  
Ok now Clint was staring at you like you were crazy. Sss...t wasn’t a word was it? No, don’t be stupid, that’s not a word at all. Try it again.  
“Sss...top.”  
Nailed it.  
No, wait, he’s leaving- ugh you idiot, you didn’t want him to leave, now look what you’ve done.  
You seemed to recall saying something else to Clint. You had talked, right? Yeah, you tried to get him to stay, then he left… He was talking to someone else now. Did Clint just have a plethora of closets with zombies in them? Probably, who else could he be talking to?  
Clint came back a while later and pointed something at you, pressed it against your head. You watched quietly as Clint leaned in really close to you. He was doing something, right? Or was he just leaning on you for the sake of it? Maybe this was a date. Ah yeah, you fucking nailed it.  
Now you were standing. Sort of. Clint had better posture than you, you had to lean on the doorframe to keep from falling over.  
“Ok cool… you haven’t tried to eat me yet so that’s…. cool.”  
Quick, say something! “Cool…”  
“Yeah…cool. And fucking crazy, I’ve lost my goddamn mind.”  
You’re having a conversation with him, overall, you figure this is going pretty well._

Clint watched Loki for a while longer, not sure what to do now. At least he wasn’t attacking, so, that was good, right? Yeah… this was a perfectly sane thing to do. Clint Barton; Redefining The Odd Couple. Ok. What to do now. He wanted to talk to Nat again, but something told him that she wouldn’t hesitate to walk to him just to beat some sense into him. Maybe that’s exactly what he needed.  
Clint shook his head. This was ridiculous. He slowly inched past Loki, Loki watching him the whole time, and slipped out of the room. He walked to the kitchen and pulled out a water bottle, taking a long drink from it before turning back to face Loki.  
“Ok… so um… I guess…. Fuck, I have no idea what I’m doing.”  
 _He’s cute when he’s struggling… is that creepy? Quit staring at him, you look like a stalker._  
Loki turned his gaze away from Clint, ambling around the apartment. He stopped at the window, staring out through the boards that covered most of the glass. Clint watched him, waiting for him to do something. Having Loki in his house was bad enough without him also being a zombie on top of that.  
“So… why aren’t you attacking me then?” Clint asked, wringing his fingers. Nervous habit.  
Loki turned back to look at Clint, shrugging.  
“You can’t shrug for all your answers, I know you can talk, so talk.”  
“....Don’t… wanna eat...you…” _Was that an ok answer? You should have worded it better. What’s a better word than wanna?_  
“Ok… then uh… what do you wanna eat?”  
 _He used it too, it’s ok._  
“What, cat got your tongue? You’re a zombie, something tells me rotten chicken isn’t gonna keep you happy forever.”  
“It’s...fine…” _It was disgusting. Just eat him! Wait, no, you like him, remember._  
“Yeah, ok. Well I’m almost out, I’m gonna have to go get more soon.” Clint cautiously sat down on the couch, and slowly, Loki made his way over too, falling onto the cushions beside Clint. Very close beside Clint.  
“Wanna… go out… out now.” Loki said, his face turned to looked at Clint, the tip of his nose only two or three inches from Clint’s.  
Loki was pale as could be, practically white, the skin around his eyes were dark and his mouth was stained from the meat. His irises had turned an icy blue, almost white. There was no mistaking him. He was a walking… talking… corpse. This was so fucked up.  
“O-...Okay, lets go out then.”  
“No!” _You may not want to eat him… ok you do, really badly, but at least you know not to. The others would kill him and then he’d either be dead or like you and you kind of liked him the way he was, all warm and squishy… that was weird, don’t think that._  
“What, you expect me to just stay here and let you go out to kill people?”  
 _Don’t say yes, don’t say yes. “Yes.” Shit._  
“Yeah, not gonna happen.”  
“Won’t… won’t kill.. anybody.”  
“Bullshit, I’m going with you.”

Several failed attempts later, Clint realized trying to get Loki to go out the roof access in the ceiling was impossible and it wasn’t going to happen. So, he pulled the boards off the front door and led them out that way. At the bottom of the stairwell, Loki paused, turning to face Clint. He sniffed a few times, leaning his face into Clint’s neck.  
“What, am I wearing the wrong cologne?”  
Loki pressed his hand to Clint’s mouth, shushing him. He retracted his hand, reaching it behind him. He pulled the scab off the bite mark on his shoulder, which quickly began to ooze a thick, black liquid. Oh god it wreaked.  
“You… smell alive… need to be...dead.” Loki said slowly, as usual. He pressed his hand into the oozing liquid and wiped it on Clint’s face. He let out a few disgusted choking noises, trying not to yak on the stairs.  
“Ok, ok that was disgusting.”  
“Ssst..stop… talking. They’ll h-hear you.” Loki turned and led Clint out onto the street, stumbling down the sidewalk.

_This was insane. Absolutely insane. Dragging a living human around a city full of dead people. Real smooth…. whatever your name was. Why couldn’t you remember it? It doesn’t matter though. You look back at Clint a few times. He’s keeping your pace at least, trying to keep his gaze forward. He could blend in. Good thing no one thinks as much as you, right?  
You sniff a few times. At first, you think Clint has wiped the goo off his face and you turn back to look at him. The smell isn’t coming from him. You lead him down an alley, trying to find the source of the smell. Your mouth would be watering right now if it could. _

Clint followed Loki down the street, meeting his eyes every time he looked back. Now, he was leading Clint down an alley. He seemed to have a purpose and Clint wondered if he caught someone else’s smell. Maybe he could use Loki to find other survi- oh. Oh that’s… just… that’s really unfortunate.  
By an overturned dumpster was a fairly fresh body sprawled out in a puddle of it’s own blood. Loki stumbled towards it, falling to his knees and reaching his hand into the wound in it’s stomach. He ripped out a chunk of dark meat, setting down to eat away at it.  
“Oh, Loki that’s… that is so wrong… and gross.” Clint whispered, trying to keep his voice down.

So, admittedly, Clint may have made a mistake in letting Loki eat that body, but at the same time, he was kind of tired of keeping rotting meat in the house. Maybe he could just sort of… keep a blind eye and let Loki out of the apartment every so often.  
When they got back, the walkie talkie was going off. “Oh, Nat, sorry I-”  
“Where the hell have you been?”  
“Uh… Bathroom…”  
“For the past half hour?”  
“At… at the store, I was in the bathroom. At the store. Getting food.”  
“Uh-huh. Maybe take the walkie talkie with you or let me know when you’re going out first. The only thing I can assume when you don’t answer is that you’re dead.”  
“You don’t answer sometimes too though.”  
“Barton, yeah, not about me.”  
“Sorry. What’s up?” Clint sat down, watching Loki stumble around the apartment.  
“Just thought you might want to know that it’s been almost three full days and Steve still hasn’t turned. The bite is healing up ok, we think he might be alright.”  
“Yeah, no that’s good, that’s really good.”  
“Yeah. So how’s your pet?”  
“He’s…. fine.”  
“You still haven’t killed him yet?”  
“No he… he um… I unchained him.”  
“You what?!”  
Clint winced. “Look, he-he’s not, he hasn’t attacked me or anything, he just wanders around the apartment.”  
“I’m gonna kick your ass, I swear to God Clint.”  
“I know, I’m sorry, he just… he’s not like the others, he’s sort of… sentient? He can talk, he doesn’t attack me. I brought him out with me to get food, he started picking stuff up, like… he came back with an armful of random crap. Hangers, socks, some figurine he found in the store, a bell-”  
“Clint, hey, I don’t care about your zombie boyfriend’s hoarding habits. I’m coming out there.”  
“What? You- Nat-”  
“Don’t argue Barton. I’ll be there in a few days.”

_Wow, that sounds serious. You hope you didn’t get Clint in trouble. Try cheering him up. Give him the socks you found. His are all dirty, he needs new ones right?  
“H...Here.” _

Clint looked up to find Loki holding out the socks he’d found. “Uh… thanks…”  
Perfect.

The days passed and it was coming on five and a half months now, almost six. Clint cleaned out the closet and started sleeping in his bed again. After he woke up to Loki standing over him one night, watching him sleep, he started locking his bedroom door.  
Loki didn’t really sleep, so that was one normal zombie thing he did. At night, when Clint was sleeping, he sat on the couch. Clint found his old iPod and showed Loki how to use it. He seemed to like the music at least.  
The two of them were in the middle of eating lunch one day when the knock came on the door. Clint had been eating a can of mixed fruit and Loki was eating ground beef. They looked at each other for a moment before Clint stood up and peaked through the peep hole. As soon as he saw who was on the other side, he pulled the door open.  
“Nat, I’m glad you made here safel-” And she punched him in the face. That was kind of expected.  
“What the hell Barton?!” She said, her voice raised slightly. She closed the door behind her. “I didn’t honestly expect to see Loki when I got here, I thought you’d just gone crazy.”  
“I’m usually telling the truth, people are still surprised when I do.” Clint replied, straightening up, rubbing his jaw.  
Loki raised his hand hesitantly. “H-hi…”  
“Oh great, he does talk. What else does he do?”  
Loki pulled the iPod out of his pocket and turned it on.  
Natasha laughed. “You… you taught a zombie to use an iPod. This is just… wow Barton. You are one of a kind.”

_Ok, new addition to the household. You can deal. You can totally deal. Not like Clint’s going to spend all of his time with Natasha and completely forget y- now they’re kissing. Ok, keep calm. Do something. Get their attention. Whistle at them! Wait, you don’t know how to whistle. Just um…_

Loki reached out and grabbed Clint’s wrist and pulled him away from Natasha, awkwardly stepping between the two of them. Natasha stumbled back a bit and laughed.  
“I think he’s jealous.” She said, still chuckling softly.  
Loki stared at Nat for a second before looking at Clint, shaking his head a little.  
“Calm down Loki, we’re not gonna kick you out just because Nat’s here.” Clint replied, hesitantly putting a hand on Loki’s shoulder. He looked down at the hand before moving away, picking the ground beef up from the coffee table and sitting on the couch.  
“So what have you two been doing for fun all day?” Natasha asked, pulling a chair from the dining room and sitting down. Clint sat on the couch opposite of Loki.  
“Uhm… not much. We go out sometimes. It’s gross, but Loki can keep the others from smelling me.” Clint replied, tapping his fingers on his leg.  
“What does he do?”  
“He uh… he wipes his blood on my face.”  
“Oh… yeah, that’s disgusting.”  
They fell silent.  
“So um… I was thinking, we should go back to the safehouse. We could take Loki with us, maybe there’s something in his blood or something that’s making him like this. We could study him, see if we could find a cure.” Natasha said, crossing her legs, eyes trained on Clint.  
“Yeah, why not? That sounds… yeah.” Clint nodded, glancing at Loki. “What do you think.”  
Loki shook his head. “Nnn...not s-s...safe.”  
“Are you just saying that because you don’t want to go?”  
Loki didn’t say anything, just making a few vowel noises.  
“Right.”

Clint and Natasha shared the bed that night, Loki stayed on the couch as usual. He sat after the other two disappeared, putting the headphones into his ears. There was a lot of music on the device, but he found himself listening to songs from Les Mis on repeat. They had a good beat, good voices. He liked it.

_Where are you? Everything’s so bright. You look down, there’s grass around your feet. The sun feels hot. Where are you? Are you… dreaming? You don’t dream, you don’t sleep. You sit on the couch and listen to music all night, waiting for Clint to wake up.  
Clint… right. He’s with Natasha.  
And tomorrow they’re going to take you to a Safehouse. You’ll probably get killed there. But where were you now? You walked aimlessly like you always do, and after not too long, you see them. You know them all, Clint, Natasha, Thor, Tony. They’re sitting together on the ground, talking, ignoring you.  
Suddenly you’re awake again. Blue dawn light is shining in through the window and you can hear birds. The apartment is cold… cold? You don’t get cold, you yourself are always cold, what is this? _

Clint arose early that morning, unable to sleep. His stomach was in knots. He rose at the crack of dawn, walking out to the living room. Loki was limp, his eyes closed. For a second, he thought he was dead. Or, more dead than usual. He called out his named, he didn’t move the first time, but after he called his name again, he roused.  
“Loki were you… were you sleeping?”  
Loki looked at Clint, confused, _wait, what was the question? Were you sleeping? Oh, yeah, no you definitely were. How weird is that?_ He nodded. “Y-yess… I… yes.”  
“Okay. Um… that’s new. Cool, I guess.” Clint nodded. “Come on, we gotta get going soon, where are your shoes?”  
Loki pointed to the table where his boots were dropped haphazardly under one of the chairs. Clint fished them out and walked over to sit on the couch beside Loki. He pulled his feet up onto his knees and slid the boots out. Loki watched him.  
Natasha got up not long after them, dressed, ready to go. “You guys all set?”  
They nodded. They packed up what little food they still had, weapons, Clint had Loki carry the extra stuff, and then headed out.

Clint and Natasha led the way, walking cautiously down the street. It seemed fairly empty and Loki seemed to be on high alert. They made it several blocks down before encountering the first zombie.  
And then another. And another.  
“Loki…” Clint said, taking a step back.  
There was at least a dozen creatures standing in front of them, watching them, shuffling towards them slowly. Loki stepped out in front of Clint and Natasha, standing between them and the other zombies. One of the creatures stepped forward, taking a couple short strides towards Loki.  
“Ee...eat.” It said quietly, pointing at Natasha.  
“No.” Loki shook his head.  
“Eat…”  
“No.” Loki put his hand on the zombie’s chest, pushing it back gently.  
“W-...w-why.”  
“Want to… help them. Want...want to change.”  
Loki stepped back, reaching his hand out and taking Clint’s. When he had a grasp on Clint’s hand, he turned the other way and took Natasha’s. He pulled them close, eyes trained on the others ahead of them now. Loki started walking towards them, and as they approached, the other’s parted, letting them pass.  
“Thank you…” Loki muttered to the creatures as they passed.  
“What about those ones?” Clint asked.  
Loki looked up at the others that gathered, three taller, skinnier figures several hundred yards in front of them. “N-not...not good. Run.”  
“Run?”  
“Go!” Loki turned and shoved them in the opposite direction before turning his gaze to the ones they’d just passed. “Help...Please.”  
The three of them took off down a different street. The other figures took chase after them. The zombies stood between them and the others, but didn’t do much else. The figures pushed passed them quickly. Halfway down the road, the figures were beginning catch up with them. Natasha shot two quickly and Clint took the third, but they were appearing on the rooftops too.  
“Clint...car.” Loki pointed ahead.  
“Yeah… right. Let’s hope it works.”  
Clint bolted ahead of them, yanking the driver’s side door open, jumping inside and hotwiring it with expert hands. The engine revved and he pulled the door open. Loki and Natasha slid in the back and he took off before the door had even shut. Clint let out a loud, excited noise, breaking off to a laugh.  
“Yeah! Yes! Ohh, this is awesome, this is a nice car.” He kept laughing, glancing up in the mirror to look for the figures. “I think we outran ‘em. Alright, yes, fuck yes!”  
Natasha broke out into a laugh with Clint, turning in the seat to watch behind them. She let out a loud noise, matching the won Clint had made and turned to face Loki, pulling him into a hug.  
“You were awesome Loki! You rocked!” Natasha pulled away, smiling at him. Loki grinned back, a sort of awkward, half-smile.

They managed to get all the way to Washington before the car finally shat out. The trip was enjoyable, Clint and Natasha chatted the whole way, laughing, smiling. Loki watched. It felt nice, seeing Clint like that. He never had before. Clint was usually angry, or just acting like a sarcastic jerk in general. Loki knew it wasn’t directed at him, or, he was pretty sure it wasn’t. It was still nice to see everyone laughing again though.  
“You know, Loki doesn’t smell rotten, did you do something?” Natasha asked upon getting out of the car to travel the rest of the way on foot.  
Clint shook his head, shrugging. “No?” He stepped forward, grabbing Loki’s arm, leaning in to smell him. “You’re right… he-he doesn’t smell… at all. And he feels a bit warmer, feel him.”  
Loki stumbled back, looking from Clint to Natasha, shaking his head.  
“I don’t think he’s a big fan of being touched.” Natasha said, laughing. “I’ll take your word for it.”  
“Lll..look.” Loki pointed past them.  
There was a small crowd of zombies ambling around them, wandering. They looked lost. Some of them had gathered to look at the trio, looking on curiously, groaning amongst each other. Loki grabbed their hands again and walked on, leading them through the zombies.  
“Look at them.” Natasha said, looking around. “They’re… they’re not attacking us… They’re just staring at us.”  
“It’s like they’re… healing themselves or something.” Clint replied, his gaze moving from creature to creature. “Can they do that?”  
“Like me… Changing.” Loki replied, looking down at Clint. “Want to… be better.”

Night fell and they found themselves in some suburban neighborhood. It was quiet, peaceful, empty. It was beginning to rain, so they decided to turn in, wait it out, continue on in the morning. By the time they got inside, they were all pretty soaked.  
“I’m gonna check the other houses, see if there’s food. Why don’t you guys see if there’s a bed that isn’t disgusting for us to sleep in.” Nat said, not waiting for a reply before she disappeared outside again.  
“Let’s check upstairs.” Clint said, leading Loki up to the second floor.  
Upstairs, Loki stood idly in the hallway, watching Clint check the doors. One was locked, one was a bathroom, one a closet. One was a bedroom, but the bed had been torn to shit by raccoons or something. Completely unusable.

_Say something, you look creepy, just staring at him. Or help him. Go check that room there. Look, see! A bed, go tell Clint.  
“C-Clint… bed.” You pull him into the room, pointing at the king sized bed with very few inexplicable stains on it. _

“Nicely done Loki.” Clint replied, nodding, stepping into the room and looking over the bed. “Ok, I don’t know about you, but if I stay in these clothes any longer, I’m gonna freeze my fucking ass off. I’m gonna take them off and hang them over a chair or something. You should do them same.”  
The two of them went back downstairs. In the kitchen, Clint pulled a couple of chairs up from the ground, setting them back straight and began peeling off his shirt.

_Don’t watch him get undressed, it’s creepy. Holy shit… Holy shit- no, stop it, look away!_

Loki turned away and pulled his own shirt off, struggling with it a bit. By the time he got it off, Clint was already down to his boxers and was looking around the cabinets for food. By the time Loki had fallen twice trying to get his pants off, Natasha had come back. She set a bag full of cans down on the table and set to work stripping her clothes off.  
“You good Loki?”  
He stood up for the third time, pants finally off, and nodded.  
“Found a can opener.” Clint said, coming back and sitting at the table.  
They opened the cans and Loki joined them, shivering slightly, watching the two eat. Clint had a cans of corn, Natasha had olives. Most of the cans’ labels had been torn off, so each one was a mystery meal. Loki watched the two for a while before reaching into the bag and pulling one of the cans out.  
“Oh fuck, Loki I’m sorry, you haven’t eaten since yesterday, I completely forgot.” Clint muttered, pressing a hand to his face.  
“It’s… o-ok.” Loki replied, drawing the can closer.  
“You wanna try eating that?” Nat asked, reaching her hand out for it.  
Loki nodded and handed her the can. She opened it and handed it back. He reached a couple fingers in and fished out chunks of orange. Clint and Nat were watching him now, waiting to see how he would take to eating regular food. He dropped the chunks in his mouth, his gaze flicking between the two as he chewed.  
“How is it?” Clint asked, taking another bite from his can.  
“Good.” Loki replied, nodding, dropping more fruit in his mouth.  
“That is amazing.” Natasha said, still watching him. “I swear he… he’s actually coming back to life. He talks, he uses your iPod, he doesn’t stink, he’s getting warmer, now he’s eating fruit… And the others, Clint they could all be fixing themselves. Maybe the virus is wearing off.”  
“Maybe.” Clint nodded, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

They all slept late into the next morning. The sun was already up by the time they all stumbled downstairs, redressed, and began eating. They packed what food they hadn’t eaten afterwards, and set outside. A small group of zombies had ambled onto the street, wandering aimlessly. Loki waved at them and several of them waved back.  
“This is just incredible.” Natasha said, watching the group as they walked past them.  
“Not even a month ago this would have been completely unthinkable.” Clint replied, slapping Loki on the back. “You started all this. They weren’t anything more than animate bodies until you started talking. And Nat, you told me to shoot him.”  
Loki tossed her an indignant look.  
“Hey, it was a sane reaction, keeping him in your closet was weird and you know it.” Natasha shot back.  
“Yeah well, either way.”

It was nearly dusk when they approached the DC safehouse. They stopped a few blocks down, ducking into a broken down shop.  
“They’re not going to take kindly to us trying to just walk in with a corpse. You guys stay here, I’m gonna go find Fury and talk to him, try to explain the situation. If I’m not back in a day, assume Fury pretty much made up his mind against it. I don’t know what to do after that, I’ll keep trying anyways.” Nat said.  
Clint nodded and she ducked back out, leaving the two alone. Clint walked to the other side, sitting down against the wall. Loki approached him, sitting across from him on the floor.  
“D-do you think… they’ll let me in?” Loki asked.  
“Come on, Government facility with an obsession with studying weird things? They’ll love you. A God infected with a zombie virus, it’s a scientist’s dream come true.” Clint replied, offering a smile.  
“Do you think they’ll… let me in without… killing me first?” Loki asked.  
“Fair point.” Clint replied, not knowing what more to say. “Hard to tell until Nat gets back I guess.”  
Loki nodded slowly. “You and...and Nat… you’re together?”  
“Uh… sort of, I guess.” Clint replied. “Why?”

_Shut up while you’re ahead! You can’t say anything, he’ll think you’re nuts. Or gross. Or both. Just hush up before you cock it all up!  
“B-because…” Shut your face! “I… it’s not important.”  
Good job. He won’t suspect a thing. _

“What’s not important?” Clint asked, cocking his head slightly.  
Loki shook his head. “N-nothing.”  
“Oh come on, it’s the end of the world, what do you have to lose?”

_“I…” You’re gonna cock it up, just stop while you still can! “I want...to be with...with you.”  
You absolute. Fucking. Nutter. _

Clint paused. He wanted… to be with him? What, romantically? He knew Loki wasn’t a normal zombie anymore, but the idea of Loki having anything relating to actual feelings hadn’t really occurred to him.  
“O-oh…” Clint nodded, his brow furrowed. “Ok.”  
“...Ok?”  
“I mean… um… yeah, that’s… neat-o.” Clint stood up. “I’m gonna go see if Nat’s back yet, why don’t you get yourself something to eat.”

_Way to go. You scared him off._

“I didn’t- didn’t mean to-”  
“It’s fine, it’s fine I just need a moment, ok?”

Clint wasn’t gone but a minute before he came back in, looking somewhat urgent. “Hey, Loki, let’s go upstairs, yeah?”  
“W-...what?”  
“Yeah, I wanna go upstairs, come with me.”  
Clint grabbed Loki’s arm and practically dragged him across the room over to the stairwell. Loki glanced behind him to see several tall, bony figures coming in behind him, and he understood Clint’s need to run. They hurried up the stairs, trying to stay ahead of the figures.  
“Where… are you guns?” Loki asked.  
“Out of ammo.” Clint replied, pulling the other along.  
“Natasha?”  
“Not back yet.”  
They got as far as they could, and they heard faint gunfire from below. They could only assume Nat had convinced SHIELD to come out and help. But that did no good for them here and now. They were at the top floor, a good five or six stories up. Clint pulled Loki to a door, throwing it open. The catwalk that led to the connecting building had completely fallen apart, there was only a small ledge left on their side.  
“Fuck…” Clint turned his gaze to the skeletons facing them, advancing on them. There was a dozen or more. “I guess this is it then.”  
“No.” Loki said sternly. “No… keep you safe.” He looked at Clint and they locked eyes.  
“Loki, what are you-?”  
Loki wrapped his arms around Clint and pulled him over the ledge. Clint let out a gasp of surprise and fear. He moved to look past Loki, trying to see what they would hit at the bottom. There was a pull of water, a fountain of some sort, beneath them. Clint buried his face in Loki’s chest and prepared to hit the water.

They hit the bottom and were surrounded by water. The impact knocked the air out of Clint’s lungs. When they stopped moving, Clint pushed up to the surface of the water, inhaling deeply, wiping the water from his eyes and looking around.  
“Loki?” He turned, thrashing in the water a bit. “Loki??”  
He looked down. Loki was still at the bottom, eyes closed. Clint dived down, grabbing the front of Loki’s shirt and pulled him up, They broke the surface and he held Loki close, pushing his hair out of his face.  
“Loki? Come on, Loki!”  
He opened his eyes slowly and they focused on Clint. He let out a sigh of relief, smiling. They stared at each other for a moment, their faces close. Clint leaned in and Loki closed the gap, their lips pressing together. They kissed briefly, short, chaste, before pulling away again. When they did, they locked eyes again. Loki’s eyes faded back to green.  
“Loki, you-”  
A gun went off, a bullet hitting Loki in the chest. Clint turned to see who had fired, seeing Fury holding up a gun, as well as a group of SHIELD agents.  
“Next one’s goin’ in his head. Move aside Barton.”  
“Wait- N-No, Director, he- he’s different, he’s not dangerous.”  
“Bullshit, step aside Agent. Now.” Fury cocked the gun, readying another bullet.  
“Fury, he-” He tossed a glance back at Loki. “He’s different, he’s changing, he’s helped me! For God’s sake Fury, he’s bleeding, he-.”  
Clint stopped, looking at Loki again. There was blood spilling from the wound, turning he water red. “He’s bleeding… Corpses don’t bleed. He’s alive… Loki… you’re…”  
Fury paused, lowering the gun a bit. Everyone behind him lowered their guns as well. Clint looked up, then back at Loki. Slowly, he pulled him through the water, climbing out of the fountain, pulling Loki along with him. Loki had a hand pressed to the hole in his chest.

Loki was brought back to the Safehouse. Reports piled in of corpses fighting the skeletal zombies. They’d teamed up with other SHIELD agents, and together, the skeletons didn’t stand a chance. The corpses had healed themselves. They came back to life. They could speak, they could eat regular food, they interacted with humans. No one was really sure what had happened. Maybe the virus wore off, maybe Loki had done something, it was impossible to say, and frankly, after everything that had happened, no one really cared. The Safehouses emptied and slowly, people started taking back the cities.  
Clint, Natasha, and Loki went back to his apartment in New York. Stark and Banner came back and put together drones that helped clean up and rebuild the cities. Steve never changed, everyone assumed the serum kept him clean. Yeah, there were still half rotten folks wandering around and pretty much every window was broken out, but people adjust quickly, so no one really cared too much. The world spun on and every rebuilt their lives. The corpses learned to live again, and, well… the world just spun on. After a while, no one so much as batted an eyelash at someone stumbling along the streets with white eyes and pale skin. It was just a part of the world.

“So, do you remember anything from before you died?” Clint asked. He and Loki were sitting on the roof of his apartment, staring out across the city.  
“Not much.” Loki replied.  
“Do you want to? I mean… I could tell you-.”  
“No… I don’t know why, but I feel like I should just start over. It seems like the thing to do. And it doesn’t seem fair that I should get to know when none of the others would ever get to know anything about their past.” Loki replied.  
“Fair enough.” Clint replied.  
“We’ll have to find something new to talk about though, I remember every single word you said to me while you had me locked in your closet, I know more about your life than I do about mine. Pretty sure I know more about Nat’s too.” Loki replied, laughing.  
“Yeeeah, sorry about that.” Clint replied, joining in with the laughter.  
“Don’t be. I didn’t mind most of the time.” Loki leaned his head on Clint’s shoulder, and Clint wrapped his arm around Loki.  
“Fair enough.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr!
> 
> Http://birdwithakeyboard.tumblr.com/


End file.
